Redmine

I'm trying to find the best plugin (or third-party solution with a way to integrate into Redmine) to use for test case management (if not as-is, then at least as a starting point from which I can make adjustments that I need). I'm not quite up to speed in Ruby enough to make my own plugin, other than a dead simple one that just adds some macros, but I think I can modify an existing one if it's close enough to what I'd like.

Here's what I've tried, after being lead there by the wiki and by threads here in the forums:

• Redmine Impasse
• Redcase
• Klaros Test Management

The others listed in ThirdPartyTools have free trials but I am not sure if any of them serve the kind of workflow I think I need.

Here's where my workflow is currently at:

1. Somebody (usually me right now since I'm the only one using Redmine) posts an issue. The issue will typically have standard "steps to reproduce" as well as a general course of action for the software to take to fix said issue, e.g. "fix the foo interface so it doesn't bar".
2. I fix the issue and commit to source control, usually with a "fixes #" comment, sets the issue to Resolved & Done 100%.
3. We set up a new version for release, set the fixed issues as targeting that version, compile and push out the binaries.
4. Tester takes an excel export (generated by Redmine XLS export plugin) of the issues targeting this version, copies issues into his testing file, which is basically an Excel file consisting of the standard regression tests, and a sheet for testing newly changed things directly (i.e. to make sure my fix worked in the first place).
5. Tester steps through these issues and marks them as pass or fail in his excel sheet.
6. Tester updates an ancient Excel version of bug log since we're not all fully up to speed in Redmine.
7. I look at Excel version of bug log and mark things in Redmine as "closed".
8. Tester goes through his standard test regimen of several hundred feature tests to ensure they all still work.

Here's what I want to get to:

• Replace step 4-7 with a version-associated test workflow which automatically steps through each issue marked as targeting this version, and asks a tester "Did this change work, fail, or introduce a new bug?" If it worked, change from Resolved to Closed, with comments if applicable.
• Replace step 8 with a standard suite that applies to every version released, and automatically steps through each one asking pass/fail similarly to the version-specific changes.
• Store results of these tests for each version in a way that can be reviewed later, exported if so desired, and ideally able to be referred to in a similar way as issues & wikis can refer back to other pages or issues.

What I found so far with Redcase, Impasse, and Klaros is that there is a lot of manual work that has to go on in order to set up a test suite and start executing. With Redcase, I found it very confusing to try and set up new test cases, and the plugin itself caused an incompatibility with the XLS export plugin. Impasse was about as confusing to set up, and on top of that, did not appear to have any way to automatically advance through test cases - had to click a dropdown, click Pass, then click the next case. With any of them, it doesn't appear to be possible to associate a version automatically to a new set of test cases for simply testing just what changed between versions. And exporting a set of results is either nonexistent, or crippled (in the case of Klaros which wants 3500 euros to be able to export excel files).

Anyone have any other bits or pieces of guidance on this subject?

Thanks :)